She Poured The Water, Arranged Some Bread

She Poured The Water, Arranged Some Bread Near Enough The Embers To Scorch But Not Catch Fire, And Looked Up At Little John. She Was So Accustomed To His Step, To His Bulk, That It Took A Moment To Notice His Face; And When She Did . . . It Was, She Thought, Rather Like The Moment It Took To Realize One Had Cut One's Finger As One Stared Dumbly At The First Drop Of Blood On The Knife-blade. You Know It Is Going To Hurt Quite A Lot In A Minute.

...but With The Hours I Sometimes Kept At The Coffeehouse I Had To Have Learned To Take Naps During The Day Or Die, And I Had Learned To Take Naps. Up Until Five Months Ago "something Or Other Or Die" Had Always Seemed Like A Plain Choice In Favor Of The Something Or Other.

The Great Thing About Fantasy Is That You Can Drag Dreams And Longings And Hopes And Fears And Strivings Out Of Your Subconscious And Call Them 'magic' Or 'dragons' Or 'faeries' And Get To Know Them Better. But Then I Write The Stuff. Obviously I'm Prejudiced.

Oh,' She Said, Too Bone-weary To Pretend: 'i Would Far Rather That I Love You As I Saw Yesterday I Do Than That I Had Gone On Worshiping You As I Did Not Long Since.' And She Turned Away Hastily, And Did Not See That Little John Would Reach Out To Her; And Half-running, Went To Tuck's Cottage, Where She Could Pull On Her Half-dry Clothes, And Become A Proper Outlaw Again. At Least, She Thought, Fighting Back Tears, Like This I Am Cecil, With A Place Among Friends, And A Task To Do. I Am Someone. I Wonder If Perhaps If I Am No Longer Cecil, I Am No One At All.

It Wasn't So Long Ago When All The So-called Scientists Said That Humans Were Intelligent And That Animals Weren't, Humans Were The Solitary Unchallenged Masters Of The Globe And Probably The Universe And The Only Question Was Whether We Were Handling Our Mastery Well. (no. Next Question.)